I’m a month late, but I’ve been ill and on holiday. I could give plenty of excuses/reasons for my delay but it boils down to the fact real life is hard and sometimes you sink
Anyway here’s the round up of all of the books I read in July
- Seventeen – Suzanne Lowe
I read this one for a blog tour and my thoughts can be found here - Wonderful Wizard of Oz – Frank L Baum
I listened to an radio play version of this book and had great fun with it. It’s the first in the Wizard of Oz series, and a great kids book. - Frankenstein – Mary Shelly
This is a classic story for a reason. I’ve read it multiple times and get something new from it every time. This time I listened to the Big Finish radio play with Arthur Darvill (Rory – Doctor Who) as Frankenstein and Nick Briggs (the daleks and many other monsters – Doctor Who) as the monster. They both played the part amazingly, if you’re at all interested in reading Frankenstein you really should, it’s the original gothic horror and deserves all the praise that’s been given to it - Unconventional – Maggie Harcourt
Time for my yearly reread with YALC/LFCC at the end of the month – previous review to be found here but short story is I love it and I will continue to read it every year for the foreseeable future - Broken Homes – Ben Aaronavitch
This is book 5 of the Rivers of London series, I read it because it opens with a murder in Crawley which is local enough to count for the Horsham Library reading challenge. It’s police prodecural with magic and ghosts and all of the reports etc. In the same way scrubs shows a realistic view of being a doctor Rivers of London shows a realistic view of the British Police force, it just happens to also include magic. - To Be or Not to Be: Chooseable path adventure – Ryan North
Hamlet, choose your own adventure where you can play as Hamlet, Ophilia, or Hamlet Sr and be a ghost. It’s one of the best choose-your-own books I’ve ever read and is laugh out loud funny. I’ve done 5+ various story lines and still haven’t got that far through the play. There’s also a Romeo and Juliet one which I’m looking forward to doing. - To Kill a Kingdom – Alexandra Christo
A retelling of ‘The Little Mermaid’ where the ‘Ariel’ character is a murderous siren and Prince Charming is a pirate. I really really loved it. Christo’s next book comes out later this year and I can’t wait to read it! - Sword Art Online progressive 6 – Reki Kawhara
Book 6 in the Progressive Light Novels of Sword Art Online we have now officially cleared the 6th floor… it’s an easy read and feels more enjoyable than the anime which is rushed. But if you’re not interested in LitRPGs this series is really not for you. - Kindred – Octavia Butler
This is a classic time travel story, written in the 70s with a black woman as the MC as she travels back in time to the early 1800s where she is assumed to be a slave. It’s a brutal look at what time travel would really be like and how women were treated. I’d only vaguely heard of this book before but I think more sci-fi/fantasy readers need to read this one. - Heartstopper vol 2 – Alice Osman
ADORABLE CUTENESS AND HAS NOW BEEN OPTIONED FOR A FILM. That is all! - More Happy than Not – Adam Silvera
I couldn’t get on board with this one, I find Silvera very hit or miss and unfortunately this one was a miss. I thought the premise was really interesting though, - Crown of Midnight – Sarah J Maas
The second in the SJM Throne of Glass series, I would like to remind people that although it can be found in the YA section of a bookshop there is no way on this planet I would suggest it to my 15 year old cousin and they are NOT YA. New Adult – yes, young adult – NO.
However if you are old enough to read SJM you absolutely should, I’m just really behind the game, but I also don’t have to wait years for the next book so there is still a minor win - Gone Girl – Gillian Flynn
This is another book where I am massively behind the game, I remember everyone talking about this book 4-5 years ago and they weren’t wrong. I’d worked out some of the twists but not all of them. I was listening to the audiobook at work and more than once I had to stop working to re-listen to something a couple of times just to get my head around it. because bloody hell this is one screwed up book with messed up people. Probably not the best thing to listen to at work, but once I’d started I wasn’t going to stop and work doesn’t take up that much of my attention.
Basically all the reviews from the past are correct and if – like me – you just haven’t got round to reading this one yet you really should. Also if you need an ‘unreliable narrator’ for a reading challenge this one counts. - Taste of Blue Light – Lydia Ruffles
I picked this book out as amazingly it’s one of the only books on my kindle with the colour ‘blue’ in the title – which i needed for a reading challenge – set in an arts school where everyone is insanely talented, or very rich, or both Lux blacks out at a party and wakes up in hospital with synthesisia and having lost weeks of memory. She has no idea what happened and is determined to try and find out while clashing with her parents and friends and being forced to have counselling sessions. I think I enjoyed it but I’m not sure if I’ll ever read it again or if I’ll read anything else by this author - Nod – Adrian Barnes
The beginning is great but the end is really weird. 0.1% of the population are the only ones who can sleep and you watch the world start to die and go completely insane from lack of sleep. - Circe – Madeline Miller
EVERYTHING YOU READ ABOUT THIS BOOK IS TRUE AND IT REALLY IS THAT AMAZING. - Everything I know about love – Dolly Alderton
Thanks to the people at Waterstones Reigate who suggested this one when I told them I needed a non-fiction book published this year (okay so the paperback is this year but it’s not a big fudge so it counts). It really summerises what it was like to grow up in the msn era and what impact that made on our social lives. I’m 5 years younger than Dolly so I just missed a few of the things she talked about but so much of it rang true. - Battle ground
I read this one for a blog tour, where my thoughts can be found here. I’m on the tour for the next book as well which will be up on the 9th Sept - Where’d you go Bernadette – Maria Semple
I read this one as I needed a book that was at least partially set in Antarctica and this one seemed like the quickest and best. Looking at Bernadette a woman who was an acclaimed architect who loses herself in her marriage and ends up outsourcing her life to a PA in India. It’s funny but not in a laugh out loud way, more in a smirking way at how she retaliates to life and the parents at the school.
The August round up should be soon, sorry again for being so late but better late than never – maybe ??
Anyway let me know if you’ve read any of these and what you thought.
Rea
Rea's Reviews 